Television

Saturday, October 24, 2015

GateHouse: The Kane Mutiny: Can things get worse for Pennsylvania's AG?

Matthew T. ManginoGateHouse Media
October 23, 2015

In Pennsylvania politics the sublime has become the
surreal. A Hollywood producer might have cause to pause if the state’s ongoing
political scandal were handed to her as a movie script. To start, the attorney
general, Pennsylvania’s top law enforcement officer, has had her law license
suspended. But she has made it clear that the inability to practice law will
have little effect on her ability to function as attorney general.

Kathleen Kane, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, is
under indictment for leaking secret grand jury testimony. The leak was meant to
embarrass former AG staffers who had challenged her decision to review the
sexual assault investigation of former Penn State assistant football coach
Jerry Sandusky.

During the course of her office’s review of the
Sandusky investigation, a trove of pornographic emails exchanged between
prominent member of the AG’s office and high ranking government officials were
discovered. Those emails resulted in the resignation of a state Supreme Court
justice, a member of the former governor’s cabinet and a member of the state
board of probation and parole.

In late 2014, a court filing, attempting to quash
the grand jury investigation of Kane’s alleged leak, detailed an alleged
conspiracy to discredit Kane. According to Kane’s attorneys, the criminal
investigation of Kane was orchestrated by longtime state prosecutors Frank Fina
and E. Marc Costanzo, who had left the Attorney General’s Office prior to Kane
taking office.

“These two men – peddlers of pornography and
obscenity depositing state paychecks . . . is an injustice of the highest order
that cannot be allowed to stand,” Kane argued in the court filing.

The porn scandal continues. A second Supreme Court
justice is being investigated by the Judicial Conduct Board for his role in
sending and receiving pornographic emails on state time.

Kane license was placed on emergency temporary
suspension by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last month, as a result of
perjury, official oppression and now a second set of similar charges all
brought by the Montgomery County district attorney. The Disciplinary Board
contended that the attorney general had taken part in “egregious conduct” that
violated rules of professional conduct and “caused substantial public and
private harm.”

The suspension officially took effect at the end of
business on Oct. 21.

Kane told her staff this week that the suspension of
her law license will have little effect on her work as attorney general. “She
said that virtually everything she does is either administrative or
ministerial, and she intends to continue doing those things,” spokesman Chuck
Ardo told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “And the two percent of what the
attorney general does that may require a valid law license; she has asked
senior staff to take care of.”

Robert Power, associate dean at Widener University
Law School, told the Post-Gazette that Kane is probably right that much of an
attorney general’s work is management. But making recommendations about
prosecutions or litigation strategy “would seem to me to constitute practicing
law,” he said.

“If she is to make final decisions even on just
strategies of how to proceed in a particular matter, whether to proceed in a
particular matter, those are all legal decisions,” Power said. “Just because
someone else signs the papers and appears in court does not change that fact.”

However, it is not clear if Kane can survive yet
another challenge, this one by her own staff. Ardo made it clear there is not
unanimous agreement within the office with Kane’s position, reported the
Harrisburg Patriot-News.

He said it was not immediately clear whether any of
Kane’s top deputies would formally contest her position.

A porn scandal, conspiracy, indictment, suspension
and now the talk of mutiny--Captain Queeg had it easy compared to Kathleen
Kane.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg,
Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book “The Executioner’s Toll, 2010” was
released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and
follow him on Twitter at @MatthewTMangino.

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.